Pretty Easy: How To Buy A Face Sunscreen You'll Want To Wear

Pretty Easy: How To Buy A Face Sunscreen

The best sunscreen is the one you'll wear every single day. Here's how to find the right product for your skin.

The best sunscreen is the one you'll use every day - so let's find you a bottle you'll actually want to slather on.

Pretty Easy: Real Girl Beauty With Ash is a series where our beauty editor trials the latest and greatest products and treatments – with trusted advice you won’t find on YouTube. Catch it each Wednesday night on Facebook and hashtag #prettyeasy over on Instagram to show us your simplest beauty moods. Got something you want made #PrettyEasy? We want to hear from you. Email us on feedback@whimn.com.au.

Now that we’ve hit the pointy end of our 20s and early 30s, I often have friends ask me how to look younger.

“Ash how come I look so old? What serums can I put on my face? Should I get injectables? Can you SEE these bags???” they’ll frantically enquire.

Well aside from the fact I am not a dermatologist (meaning I’m not qualified to dish out such advice), I am quite apt at parroting the information many a skin doctor has relayed to me over the years. Wear sunscreen, limit your alcohol intake, drink two litres of water each day and clock eight hours of sleep each night.

Sure, most of us have three out of four down pat, but the fourth – protecting our skin – is still a struggle. Scary when you consider that according to recent research by Neutrogena, only 30% of women bother to apply facial sunscreen on a daily basis, meaning that despite all those skin cancer awareness campaigns and our increased understanding of how UV rays cause premature skin ageing, 70% of us choose to forgo daily sun protection. Yep.

Now as we’ve reiterated time and time (and time) again, sunscreen is a non-negotiable step in your AM skincare routine.

I know – it’s not sexy. Shopping for SPF doesn’t exactly conjure up the same emotions as say, a bottle of Le Labo Santal 33 fragrance or a Tom Ford bronzer.

Alas, as far as I’m aware, neither of those (as lush as they are) are very proficient when it comes to staving off damaging free radicals or UV rays.

Sunscreen, on the other hand, hoo-boy, it gets a gold star in both departments. Not only does it protect against the sun’s harmful rays (which is one of the main contributors of accelerated ageing) but many formulations today also help work against environmental factors like air pollution, in one neat bottle.

And if you’ve found sunscreens in the past made your face feel and look blah then fear not, gone are the days of chalky lotions with several brands offering up picks that melt into the skin on contact leaving no white cast or residue (plus, it’s well and truly time to do away with the notion that high protection sunscreen will clog pores and cause breakouts – it won’t.)

Good news is, for how effective sunscreen is at doing its job, it rings in at a pretty reasonable price. The main prerequisites? It needs to be a primary sunscreen with at least SPF30+ (your foundation doesn’t count) and registered with the TGA (Therapeutic Goods Administration) as well as being photostable with broad spectrum UV filters.

UV what? OK, a quick lesson. Basically UVB is the one that causes what we see as a sunburn or red and painful skin, whereas UVA causes other skin damage and is more responsible for premature ageing and pigmentation. A lot of sunscreens have quite high UVB protection, so you won’t feel like you’ve got a sunburn, but you’re still getting enough UVA to cause significant damage. In order to get sufficient UVA protection in your sunscreen then you need to ensure your sunscreen is labelled as ‘broad spectrum.’ The clincher is UVA is fairly constant year round so in order to protect against skin cancer, premature ageing and pigmentation, sunscreen should be applied every day of the year – not just when you’re heading to the beach.

Of course, everyone’s skin is different, but ahead are some of the best picks to slather on and get started – every single day.